Matrix Podcast

Recorded on October 20, 2026, this episode of the Matrix Podcast features a lecture by Desmond Jagmohan, Assistant Professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley. The lecture was delivered as part of the Matrix Teach-In series, which brings some of UC Berkeley's most engaging social science lecturers into a public setting.
Abstract
This lecture distinguishes nationalist from civic patriotism. Donald Trump has voiced the former as a summons to restore a lost greatness, Barack Obama the latter as a call to fulfill the unkept promise of the Declaration of Independence, an ideal not yet fully realized. The lecture argues that civic patriotism offers the nobler and more democratic vision, but that a civic patriotism adequate to our moment must also take seriously the lost standing of working-class Americans, those whose material precarity, and the attenuation that follows, draws them to nationalist patriotism. Liberals must do more than reclaim the symbols of patriotism in the name of realizing political and social equality; they should also pursue an economic nationalism that puts Americans first, one that recognizes that, in America, earning determines standing.
About the Speaker
Desmond Jagmohan is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He specializes in the history of American and African American political thought, American intellectual history, and the history of political thought. His research concerns political and moral agency under conditions of extreme oppression. He is completing his first book, Dark Virtues: Booker T. Washington's Tragic Realism (under contract with Princeton University Press), which draws on several years of archival research to recover Washington as a virtue theorist of the oppressed. His second book will read Harriet Jacobs's slave narrative as a work of moral and political theory that grounds the wrong of slavery in property rights in another person.  His work has been published in Journal of Politics, Political Theory, Annual Review of Political Science, Perspectives on Politics, Politics, Groups, and Identities, Contemporary Political Theory, and Boston Review.
Professor Jagmohan is the winner of several awards and fellowships: The APSA Best Dissertation Award from the Race, Ethnicity and Politics Section (2015), a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University (2018), and  a Laurance S. Rockefeller Visiting Faculty Fellow at University Center for Human Values at Princeton University, and Hellman Fellowship at UC, Berkeley. Prior to arriving at Berkeley, he was Assistant Professor of Politics at Princeton University, where he delivered the 2018 Constitution Day Lecture and was awarded the Laurance S. Rockefeller University Preceptorship in the University Center for Human Values. He holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. from Cornell University.
A transcript of this recording is available at https://matrix.berkeley.edu/research-article/jagmohan.

The transition to a low-carbon economy is reshaping how societies produce and consume energy, with far-reaching implications for technology, industry, policy, and everyday life. Yet moving away from fossil fuels brings complex challenges around infrastructure, affordability, political economy, and the distribution of costs and benefits.
Recorded on October 14, 2026, this panel brought together advanced graduate students from UC Berkeley whose research examines the forces shaping green energy transitions around the world. Drawing on emerging scholarship spanning energy systems, technological change, environmental policy, and social equity, the discussion focused on how societies can navigate the opportunities and tradeoffs of decarbonization, and what is at stake for communities, economies, and the future of the planet.
The panel featured Nathaniel Dolton-Thornton, PhD candidate in the Energy and Resources Group; Janna Zou Huang, PhD Candidate in Sociology; and August Rud Jacobsen, PhD candidate in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management. Ken Alex, Director of Project Climate at the UC Berkeley's Center for Law, Energy and Environment (CLEE), moderated.
This event was co-sponsored by the UC Berkeley Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management (ESPM); the Energy and Resources Group (ERG); and the Center for Law, Energy and Environment (CLEE).
A transcript of this recording is available at https://matrix.berkeley.edu/research-article/green-transitions

Recorded on October 15, 2026, this recording features a new book by Norma Alarcón, Professor Emerita of Chicanx Latinx Studies at UC Berkeley, a groundbreaking Chicana theorist and feminist scholar. The book is a collection of essays co-edited by Norma E. Cantú, Dionne Espinoza, and Marisa Belausteguigoitia.
Dr. Alarcón discussed her work alongside Professors Norma Cantú (Murchison Professor, Trinity University) and Laura E. Pérez (UC Berkeley). This event was presented by the UC Berkeley Latinx Research Center and Social Science Matrix. 
ABOUT THE BOOK
Forced by Circumstance: A Chicana Feminist Journey (1981–2024) is a powerful new book, a deeply personal and intellectual reflection that spans more than four decades of groundbreaking work in Chicana feminism, cultural studies, and social justice. Professor Alarcon's voice has shaped conversations about identity, gender, culture, and power for generations of students and readers. Now, her story — and the ideas that have transformed an entire field — are available to the public.
The book gathers in one volume foundational essays by, and interviews with one of the most highly esteemed intellectuals in Chicana/o, Latina/o, and Feminist Studies. Reading Alarcón's essays—from her early work on Mexican feminist writer Rosario Castellanos to her recent reflections on the carceral state and the political debacle that our contemporary situation presents—not only offers readers a sense of the intellectual trajectory of one of our most important Chicana feminist thinkers but also brings to a new generation of scholars and readers classic essays in Chicana/o Studies, Cultural Studies, Feminist Studies, and Literary Studies.
A transcript of this recording is available at https://matrix.berkeley.edu/research-article/alarcon.

California is one of the wealthiest states in the country, yet it also faces persistent poverty, stark economic inequality, and some of the highest costs of living in the nation. These tensions raise fundamental questions about who benefits from California's economic growth and why so many residents struggle to achieve economic security.
Recorded on October 7, 2026, this panel brought together leading scholars to examine the forces shaping wealth and poverty across the state. Drawing on research spanning inequality, affordability, economic mobility, and social policy, the discussion explored the roots of California's economic divides, how they are reproduced across generations, and what is at stake for families, communities, and the future of the state.
The panel featured David Grusky, Edward Ames Edmonds Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences, and Professor of Sociology at Stanford, and Samuel Trachtman, Senior Researcher at the Berkeley Economy and Society Initiative at UC Berkeley. Evan White, Executive Director of the California Policy Lab at UC Berkeley, moderated.
The Social Science Matrix California Spotlight series focuses on important issues that are directly relevant to the people of California, in support of the University of California's mission as a public research institution.
This event was co-sponsored by the Goldman School of Public Policy, the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, the Berkeley Economy and Society Initiative, and the Opportunity Lab.
A transcript of this recording is available at https://matrix.berkeley.edu/research-article/wealth-and-poverty.

Recorded on October 1, 2026, this video features an Authors Meet Critics panel on the book Demos: How the People Ruled Athens, by Daniela Cammack, Assistant Professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley, with a courtesy appointment in the Department of Ancient Greek and Roman Studies (formerly Classics).
Professor Cammack was joined in conversation by James Porter, Distinguished Professor and Irving Stone Chair in Literature in the Department of Rhetoric at UC Berkeley, and Kinch Hoekstra, Chancellor's Professor of Political Science and Law at UC Berkeley. Dylan Riley, Professor of Sociology at UC Berkeley, moderated.
This event was co-sponsored by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and the Departments of Political Science and Ancient Greek & Roman Studies.
The Social Science Matrix Authors Meet Critics book series features lively discussions about recently published books authored by social scientists at UC Berkeley. For each event, the author discusses the key arguments of their book with fellow scholars.
A transcript of this podcast is available at https://matrix.berkeley.edu/research-article/demos.
About the Book
In ancient Greece, demokratia meant "rule by the people"—but what people, and how did they rule? Scholars have long argued that demokratia signified the rule of all adult male citizens over themselves. In Demos, Daniela Cammack counters this view by arguing that demokratia meant rule by the crowd that assembled when a public meeting was held. This crowd was the demos, which the Greeks distinguished from orators, generals, councilors, public benefactors, and other civic leaders.
Drawing on literary and epigraphical evidence as well as the key theoretical insights of Aristotle and Hobbes, Cammack explains how constantly changing masses of ordinary ancient Greek men ruled while their leaders were ruled over. This political system relied on kratos, the power to prevail militarily, epitomized by the victories of the Athenian demos in civil conflicts around 508 and 404 BC. In peacetime, the superior strength of the demos revealed itself in large, frequently summoned crowds of ordinary citizens acting as policymakers, legislators, and (crucially) judges, who wielded great power over politicians.
Aristotle characterized the years 403 to 322 as the era of "ultimate democracy," and it was during this period that the Athenians pulled off a feat unmatched by modern democrats: making use of talented and ambitious leaders without being ruled by them. By contrast, the Greeks called rule by elected office-holders "oligarchy." As people today lose faith in democratic institutions, Cammack's account prompts us to ask if we've been doing democracy all wrong—or even at all.